Reddish South railway station is a stop on the Stockport–Stalybridge line in Reddish, Stockport, England. The station, used by only 26 passengers in 2013/14, is one of the quietest on the UK rail network. From May 1992 until May 2018, it was served by parliamentary services in order to avoid a formal proceeding to close the line. Despite the low passenger numbers, the line itself is used regularly for freight traffic and empty stock transfers.
History
Reddish South was opened by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) when the line between Stockport and Guide Bridge was completed on 1 August 1849. The line from Stalybridge to Huddersfield opened on the same date, thus giving the LNWR access to Yorkshire. The 19th-century civil engineering firm John Brogden and Sons was the contractor.[1]
The station, which consisted of two island platforms, also had a signal box, sidings, and a goods shed. For more than fifty years, it catered for the LNWR mainline services between Manchester and Leeds.
All regular Monday to Saturday hourly services stopped at the station. However, express traffic was drastically reduced when services were redirected to Manchester London Road station (now Manchester Piccadilly) in May 1899.
With the redirection of the long-distance express services, the station became a scheduled stop for local traffic. Although the Stockport–Stalybridge line escaped the 1960s Beeching cuts, when large numbers of cross-country branch lines were closed for being uneconomical, the station and line were gradually run down by British Rail over the next couple of decades (especially after a timetable revamp on the Leeds to Manchester main line in spring 1989, which saw most services diverted to serve Manchester Piccadilly rather than Victoria).
The remaining original station building on one of the island platforms was demolished, with the sidings and engine shed removed. After the line was eventually reduced to a single track, the second island platform was abandoned. One of the track beds was sold off and the other was filled in. The station became a request stop.
In May 2007, Network Rail proposed in its North West Route Utilisation Strategy that both Reddish South and Denton stations should be closed while the line remain open for freight and diverted passenger workings. This prompted a campaign to start asking for a regular service from Stockport to Manchester Victoria, via Reddish South and Denton.[4]
Quietest station in the UK
Local campaigners have installed artwork, a flower-bed and a fence alongside the platform.
Between April 2013 and March 2014, Reddish South was the third-least-used station in Great Britain, after Teesside Airport and Shippea Hill, with only 26 recorded passengers.[5] In 2015, passenger figures from the Office for Rail and Road showed that Reddish South had become Britain's fourth-quietest railway station.[6] In January 2020, the station was named as the UK's third quietest, with just 60 entries and exits between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019.[7] By 2023, the station had become the fifth least used in the UK, with 100 entries and exits.[8]
For many years, the only service was the 09:22 Fridays-only parliamentary train from Stockport to Stalybridge. It stopped at Reddish South at 09:26, before continuing to Stalybridge via Denton and Guide Bridge.[9]
On 20 May 2018, Arriva Rail North replaced the Friday service with one return service on Saturday mornings. The first service departs Reddish South at 08:46 to Stockport and returns at 09:10 to Stalybridge.[10]
